And, not only did these cells ‘talk’ to form new muscle cells altogether, but they actually beat, said researchers.

“Recovery of regenerative cells located in the stromal vascular fraction of a patient’s own subcutaneous tissue is relatively simple and can be used for self-healing,” said Christopher Alt, a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Molecular Pathology at the University of Texas in Houston.

“A patient’s quality of life can be improved by application of those recovered regenerative cells to the heart, as well as to bone, tendons, non-healing wounds and joints,” he said.

They found that the two fused and formed new heart muscle cells with several nuclei. When kept in a culture environment, these cells beat. These new cells exhibited an ability to compensate for a loss of cardiomyocytes as following a myocardial infarction, via fusion with cardiomyocytes.

Furthermore, the study has shown that contrary to previous findings suggesting that genetic modification of certain embryonic genes in adult stem cells is required as a prerequisite for turning into heart cells, the human stem cells used in this study were not genetically modified.